About the work
"Different Grounds" is a ballet evening by Semperoper Ballett Dresden that unites three world premieres by contemporary choreographers in a single programme. Its core idea: dance exists all over the world – yet this "language" is not spoken everywhere with the same accent. Three artistic signatures from different geographical and aesthetic contexts meet and generate an exciting clash of perspectives. The company invited the Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake, the Israeli choreographer Shahar Binyamini and the French choreographer Julian Nicosia – each with a work newly created for the Dresden ensemble.
Plot
The evening consists of three independent world premieres. Stephanie Lake, director of the Stephanie Lake Company (Melbourne), creates her first work for the Semperoper ensemble. Shahar Binyamini, shaped by the Gaga movement language and an organic, flowing physicality, contributes another new piece. Frenchman Julian Nicosia, whose style is influenced by William Forsythe's deconstructed ballet, completes the triptych. Musically the evening ranges from Johann Sebastian Bach to the contemporary soundworlds of composers Robin Fox and Michael Anklin. As these are abstract, plotless choreographies, the focus is not a continuous narrative but the contrast of three movement languages and the question of how differently "dance" is conceived and spoken around the world.
Cultural significance
"Different Grounds" exemplifies the curatorial practice of major ballet companies of gathering several contemporary choreographic voices into a single evening, making the stylistic diversity of today's dance visible. By bringing together artists from Australia, Israel and France, the Semperoper Ballett underlines the international, border-crossing character of contemporary dance. For the ensemble, encountering three markedly different movement languages is at once an artistic challenge and an expansion of its own repertoire.